Fear; An unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm.

Unpleasant. It’s supposed to feel horrible, to keep us safe. Our body’s way of keeping us away from danger, forcing us to retreat to safety.

And yet, my pull towards it ensures that I flit from one fearful event to the next, bounding along like a hyper lamb in the spring grass. It doesn’t matter if the result leaves me crashing down in an anxiety-riddled low. I’ll still pick myself up and carry on, treading the same paths, looking for something more.

Which was probably why I found myself, once again, lounging around in the vampire’s lair, convincing myself not to have a shred of regret.

I hated to admit that anything to come from my father’s lips could be accurate, but maybe when he’d told me for the thousandth time that I wasn’t wired right… he was onto something.

Fear and anger released that buzzing in my head, the thrumming under my fingertips. Did I seek that out? The release of that energy?

I drew my arms around myself. That energy was not something I should go looking for. It caused pain. Even death.

We kill murderers… he had said.

He killed murderers.

I was a murderer. I shouldn’t be here. I should have died, too.

My dad was an asshole. I was never good enough, he always expected more from me. The amnesia after the explosion was true. I didn’t know what we’d been fighting about that day. But I did know that the explosion wasn’t some random, freak incident. Well, it was a freak incident, but one I’d somehow caused.

Such painful memories. Keeping them suppressed has been essential. I can’t bear having them on the surface, creeping around in my conscience, breaking me down.

I reached to scratch the itching scar on my back. Zac’s contemplative gaze slid across to follow my fingers where they rubbed and clawed.

Please don’t ask me. Don’t ask…

The smallest, almost imperceptible nod from him.

“Have you always been obsessed with danger?” he asked.

“I’m not obsessed,” I lied.

He smirked at me, “No? Fast motorcycles, poker hustling, firefighter, hanging out with vampires?”

I smirked back, “You’re not dangerous, you just like to think you are.” I stretched out my leg, basking in the freedom now that my cast had finally been removed.

He shook his head and dismissed my joke. “You’re in a perpetual state of excitement, your body forever on the cusp of fight or flight. Heightened adrenalin. When the hormone levels dip, you start craving more. You’re so hyped-up all the time, you make a vampire giddy,” he drawled, trailing a finger lazily around my stomach.

I wondered why he didn’t allow himself to taste more of the wine if he was such an alcoholic.

“Well, since you have me all worked out, I’ll admit. Do you know why I took my job at the fire department here?” I mused, daring to lift a hand and stroke idly at the top of his chest.

“Because it’s the number one hotspot for nubile young things looking for a good time?”

“Well… yes, obviously. But mostly because my psychic said not to come. That something dangerous was going to happen. So I made up my mind instantly that I would come. I had to know what this dangerous thing was. How crazy is that?”

“I think it’s more crazy to live your life based on what a phoney psychic tells you.”

“She’s not fake. She always gets stuff right and she got this right, didn’t she?”

“You could put just about anything that happens here into the dangerous bracket, even without meeting me. You see what you want to see. There’s plenty of action around here that could be considered dangerous. And with you, since you radiate towards peril, she was bound to hit something.”

“Wow. The mind-reading supernatural being is a sceptic about someone else’s psychic abilities.”

“Humans don’t have powers. They’re just human. Well, most of them…” He tightened underneath me.

The issue we never talked about.

He knew. He knew that I wasn’t normal. How long would he let it go before he started pushing me on it?

“Maybe she isn’t human.” I said. “Maybe she’s a vampire and I never knew.”

“A vampire would not cheapen themselves with a career as a fortune teller,” he scoffed. “But, talking of dangerous things, I’ve been meaning to show you something.”

* * *

We passed down the hallway and I paused outside a door. Up until the other night, I’d never seen any of them use it and had assumed it was just a storage cupboard or something. But I’d seen Leon come through it, and I’d been meaning to ask every time I went past, but always got distracted.

“What’s with this—” I began. Zac turned and rested a hand on my shoulder, kissing my lips softly.

“Come, Jess, I need to show you this,” he murmured in my ear. My hand fell from the door and I followed him through to the garage.

I knew it was big from what I’d seen outside, but he’d never taken me inside before. When he opened the door and flicked the lights I couldn’t believe how massive it was, more like a barn. The smell of gasoline and polish shot up my nose, which I stuck upwards like a dog to heave a deep breath. Damn, I loved that smell.

A row of motorcycles stood along one wall, there must have been twenty of them, alongside several extremely expensive-looking sports cars.

“These aren’t all yours?” I began walking towards a set of sleek yellow wheels when he pulled me over to a tarpaulin in one corner.

“Yeah, but that’s not the surprise. This is.”

With a lightning flurry he pulled the cover away to reveal the most sublime machine imaginable. I glanced at him incredulously, his face full of pride and wonder, before I was drawn back to the other sexy thing in the room.

“Fuck me sideways! That’s a Dodge Tomahawk?” I gasped, darting my hand towards it before pulling back, too afraid to do so.

“Go on, you can touch. Sit on it, if you like?”

Before he could change his mind I swung my leg over and caressed the dazzling silver metal. It was beautiful, a work of art. Technically not really a motorcycle since it has four wheels, but they are so close together that it’s still motorcycle shaped – a huge, monstrous machine. A piece of automotive sculpture, as I had heard it described before.

It was like something out of a movie, a vision of futuristic transport. The sort of machine that sent grown men weak at the knees and made them talk bhp and torque. I was no exception, I just happened to be a girl.

“But I thought it was a concept bike, that they never made any more?” I asked.

“It is. They didn’t. I had to spend a lot of money.”

I let out a long whistle under my breath. I could only imagine how much a lot was, but I guessed at least half a million.

“It’s not even road legal,” he went on. “They didn’t intend for it to be ridden much, it was never tested fully at speed. You can barely turn the thing round a corner and the tank only holds just over three gallons.”

“But you didn’t buy it for cruising round town, huh?”

He flashed an enormous smile. “Exactly. That’s a V10 engine in there. Nought to sixty in two point five seconds. Top speed of nearly four hundred. The strip isn’t long enough to get any more than a fleeting glimpse at that speed, but it’s good enough. It’s the only thing fast enough to give me a decent buzz.”

“And you call me crazy?” I was shaking my head in disbelief.

I wondered how much money they spent on bribing the police to turn a blind eye to their activities, to ignore a Dodge Tomahawk tearing up the strip. Anna had hinted before about the amount of money the Elwoods had, of the rumours about how vast the sum was. Unless, they used other methods…

“They’re not even close. It’s more money than they dream about,” he said simply, cutting off any thoughts of other vampire persuasions.

“So why do you live here?” I asked.

“You don’t like it here?”

“Well, yes, but if I could choose anywhere in the world I think it would be somewhere else.”

I’d had so many dreams as a college student, all the places I would go – Australia, Africa, Tokyo…

“It suits us here. The smallness. The atmosphere.”

“How long have you lived here?”

“Quite a long time.”

“Don’t people notice… the not ageing thing?”

“This island might be rammed to capacity, but the number of people who actually reside here long term is very small. We—” he paused. “Keep them from noticing.”

The mind-fucking. The money didn’t work for everything, then.

“Besides—” he suddenly seemed distracted and trailed off, staring at me intently. His eyes focussed on my hands which were absently caressing the shiny metal. He looked back up to my face and I saw the hunger, the dark lusting. Fear and arousal battled with each other inside my chest.

‘Time for you to get off the Dodge now,” he said sternly.

Disturbed by the sudden change of mood I said, “Don’t panic, tempting as it is I’m not going to steal this one from you.”

“Seriously, you have to get off. Seeing you astride it, stroking it like that…”

In the next breath I was pinned over the hood of a blue car.

* * *

My head spun from his hungry, rough kisses, sending fuzzy sparks through my vision. One hand held me down, while the other found its way under my top, and I whimpered as he found my nipple.

He pushed my legs up so that I was fully laying across the hood, eagerly spread for him, his big urgent hands yanking my jeans down.

“I believe I owe you a sexual favour,” he said, his voice deep and sexy. I didn’t understand what had caused him to lose his usual restraint, but I groaned his name in the hopes of keeping him going.

He started at my ankle, planting kisses and nibbles up my calf and inside my thigh. My hips wriggled, squirming with too much pleasure, his lips tickling and teasing.

Licking upwards, he continued ever higher until his tongue brushed past the sensitive bundle of nerves between my legs, before continuing the teasing assault down my other leg, nuzzling my inner thigh. His tongue was so cold it felt like ice trailing over my skin. My toes curled, my legs pressing together against his head. It was too much, I was so wet that my ass slipped around on the metal hood.

“Zac! Please!” I cried.

He pushed against my knees, opening me back up. In an instant his tongue was there, licking right where I needed him the most. I screamed out at the pleasure and grabbed his hair, eager to keep him in place. He obliged and slid a finger inside me as his tongue continued to flick over my clit.

Slowly, so slowly, he added another cool finger, delving deep inside me, making me feel like I needed to pee and explode with ecstasy at the same time. The rhythm increased, harder and faster. His tongue lapped at me with unrelenting rhythm, along my opening, and then inside, roaming where his fingers had been.

I was a slippery mess. I struggled to keep myself from kicking him away and demanding his cock. It wasn’t enough. Because it was too much. Too intense. Too patient. Too fucking amazing.

He found my clit again and sucked. My body arched upwards, yearning to be whole with him. Images flashed behind my eyelids, all the things that I wanted him to do to me. The hard fucking I needed.

“Jess,” he groaned against my opening, my name leaving his lips with heated urgency.

He bit me. There. I didn’t know if it involved fangs. I didn’t even care.

I screamed his name and it seemed to echo back to us through the garage.

“Come for me,” he growled, nipping, sucking, licking. His movements’ swift, precise, brutal in their assault on my clit.

The submissive in me just loved being ordered to come. That authority, the masculinity of his big hard body against mine, owning me… I climaxed loudly against his mouth, my whole body bucking and quivering.

He rose and loomed over me, pressing his hard cock into my wetness, straining in his jeans. Through his panting he was groaning and growling, all at the same time. A carnal noise. He didn’t look like a beast; he looked so fucking hot that I could think of nothing other than having him inside me. His tongue roamed every part of my mouth, tasting different, with my own flavours.

I gripped his biceps, bulging and solid. He was huge, as if he’d somehow grown even bigger in that moment, advancing on me and dwarfing my small frame. Fisting a handful of my hair, he growled in my ear, his cock pressing between my legs with ever increasing need.

He shoved my top up and sucked mercilessly on my nipples.

“Zac!” I screamed.

He knew what I needed. He stepped back and unbuckled his belt. The look on his face froze my heart. Angry and needing. Was he going to hurt me? My pulse quickened.

His forehead crumpled and he stopped himself. Instead of filling me with his cock, fulfilling my every need, he stepped back.

No! No…

I reached forward desperately and pulled him into me, burying my face into his shoulder.

“I need you,” I whispered, grabbing his ass.

He pressed his lips to the soft spot between my neck and shoulder, and my body sung with satisfaction. His tense posture said that he wanted to retreat, but his lips told a different story.

Suck it. Please. Suck me.

I drifted further away on the ecstasy, when I was rudely brought round by a raging shout and the sound of crunching metal.

My eyes opened cautiously to find that he was standing beside the car, his body convulsing in gasping breaths. I tried to take in all the little bits of information that my brain didn’t want to read; the huge dent in the car next to me, his bleeding knuckles and, holy shit, his fangs.

“Did you just punch the car?” I squeaked, my voice having left me.

His face was so sombre that I didn’t know what else to say. He had taken me to heaven, but now he was scaring me. Not because I didn’t feel safe, but because I knew what this meant. He thought he was losing control and he was going to pull away.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“Why? I was having the time of my life before you decided to trash your very expensive car. Please continue. How do you want me? Like this?” My thoughts stopped coming in the right order, the way they did when I was exhilarated. I was still lying over the car with my jeans at my knees, fully exposed. “Or like this?”

I scrambled around onto my knees and wiggled my backside at him, giving him full access. I peeked under my arm to look back, and heard him groaning as he left the garage.

“Both,” he moaned, not looking back.

* * *

“Before you open your mouth, would you please try thinking about it first for a change? Really think about it before you let those words come out. This is not a game, Jess.” Zac was so full of angry tension that little veins had risen around his temples.

I paused, playing along, even though we both knew I wouldn’t. It was all I could think about.

You could be one of us…

“I know it’s not a game,” I said. “You’ve obviously heard me thinking it so is there any point in me even saying it?” I only hoped he hadn’t managed to pick up on anything in my head that would remind him it was Alex who suggested it.

“No, there isn’t, so don’t do it. Once you say it out loud it’s real. I’m begging you not to. We can forget about this and you can say something else, like let’s go for a ride or did you see that thing on the news today about blah blah. I don’t care, just make it anything but that.”

I studied his face hard. The perfect angles, strong jaw, dark piercing eyes that were pleading with me for the impossible. Desperation.

How could I change my mind about what I wanted more than anything in the world? Sure, I knew he was right and that I ought to change my mind, but how could I? I needed to be with him more than I’d ever imagined possible. It was simply incomprehensible to imagine life without him, and yet I was sure that he would soon slip away from me.

I’d thought about this over and over. I tried not to, I tried to forget the whole idea, but those words kept ringing through my head. So loud, so clear, as if Alex was right beside me, whispering them into the heart of my conscience.

I wasn’t afraid of what I was going to ask him. I was only afraid of his answer.

I took a deep breath and took the plunge. “Make me a vampire.”